Season Recap: Rochelle boys bowling team

Senior core departing as roster numbers remain small

Russell Hodges
Posted 1/17/19

Doug Koch has coached the Rochelle varsity boys bowling team for roughly 15 years, but this winter may be one of his last chances for a while to help send one of his players to the IHSA State Championship.

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Season Recap: Rochelle boys bowling team

Senior core departing as roster numbers remain small

Posted

ROCHELLE — Doug Koch has coached the Rochelle varsity boys bowling team for roughly 15 years, but this winter may be one of his last chances for a while to help send one of his players to the IHSA State Championship.

Rochelle’s season concluded at the IHSA Freeport Regional this past Saturday, with the Hubs finishing ninth overall behind senior Brady Shank, who qualified as an at-large individual for the IHSA Rockford Jefferson Sectional this weekend. If he can move on, Shank would become the first Hub to reach the state tournament since Steven Demoff advanced during the 2014-15 season.

Shank (190.1 average, 706 high series and 254 high game) is one of three senior bowlers including Dallas Driver (185.2 average, 672 high series, 257 high game) and Tyler Johnson (199.4 average, 679 high series, 258 high game) who have made up Rochelle’s foundation over the last four seasons. The Hubs also received a boost from first-year senior Nick Stevens (156.6 average, 605 high series, 220 high game), and Koch said he was pleased with how his senior leaders performed this winter.

“I’m going to miss their personalities,” Koch said. “They always come in with a positive attitude and they’re always up for a challenge. If one player was down, they worked together to bring the team up. The boys really worked well together, and Nick really helped us out considering he hadn’t bowled for us before. His average really improved throughout the season.”

Rochelle ended the season 5-10 over 15 matches this year. The Hubs finished seventh at the Dixon Toughman Tournament while taking eighth in the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference Championship and ninth at the Cavalier Classic. Rochelle earned two victories over Sterling plus wins over Geneseo, Ottawa and Streator.

“I thought we did rather well for the lack of depth we had this season,” Koch said. “Brady, Tyler, Dallas and Nick [Stevens] really pulled their weight this year and overall, I was really happy with our season. We pulled out more wins than we did last year, but I wish we could’ve done better at the regional.”

While the Hubs had plenty of experience this season, Rochelle’s roster will not look nearly the same next winter. With four seniors (Shank, Johnson, Driver and Stevens) graduating and only four players eligible to return next season, Koch said the emphasis will turn to building players up through the local youth program at T-Byrd Lanes.

Junior Logan Ortega and sophomore Keith Holland each bowled varsity matches this season, while freshmen Devansh Patel and Sergio Guevara appeared on the varsity team late in the winter.

“We have to start getting more boys into our youth program,” Koch said. “They can progress along that way so when they get to the high school level, they’ll want to play the sport. When boys don’t participate in our youth program, they start out green at the high school level and we’re essentially working from scratch.”